On a day when senior politician from Nagaland and former Chief Minister KL Chishi resigned from the BJP, blaming the saffron party for choosing to ignore the interest of the people of Nagaland, some amount of uncertainty emerged over the fate of the BJP’s alliance with the Neiphiu Rio led NDPP.

In a major political development, atleast 18 MLAs of the opposition Naga Peoples Front (NPF) wrote to the party leadership proposing a ‘stable regional coalition’ in Nagaland and asking that necessary step be initiated with the ruling NDPP party leadership.

It may be mentioned that the present ruling alliance in Nagaland has a wafer thin majority with the opposition NPF as the single largest party with 26 MLAs. The ruling party NDPP has 18 MLAs and depends on the crucial support of 12 BJP MLAs.

The latest move of some NPF MLAs appears to be aimed at sidelining the BJP party in Nagaland and to extent support to the leadership of Chief Minister Neiphiu Rio and the NDPP.

The 18 NPF MLAs have in a letter dated March 6 to TR Zeliang, the Leader of the NPF Legislature Party, proposed that under the present political scenario prevailing both in the State as well as in the country; they were fully convinced that a stable regional coalition in the State is the need of the hour.

“…So as to deliver goods to the people and also to face any eventualities in the upcoming Lok Sabha elections”, the letter signed by the 18 NPF MLAs stated.

In this regard, the signatories asked that the Leader of the NPF Legislature Party (TR Zeliang) “kindly initiate necessary steps so as to realize our objectives”. The letter of the 18 NPF MLAs further wanted the leadership to formalize the “necessary modalities with the NDPP party leadership at the earliest before the upcoming parliamentary election.